SAAVI rehabilitation center undergoes renovations

September 27, 2006 - In August, the Southern Arizona Association
for the Visually Impaired opened its newly renovated rehabilitation
center, a modular building that on the inside now resembles an
apartment.

There's a bedroom with a dresser, an iron and a king-sized bed.
There's a bathroom, a washer and dryer and a kitchen with a stove
and a refrigerator.

The new features help the center's employees teach the blind how
to safely complete every-day chores, like cooking on a stove,
ironing or making the bed.

According to Vanta, the renovation project was spearheaded by
one woman, Debra Anderson, vice president of Casas Lindas
Development Corportation. Anderson has multiple family members who
suffer from impaired vision.

The rehabilitation center, called "the back module" by SAAVI
staff, has been formally renamed, "The Casas Lindas Development
Corporation Rehabilitation Center."

When the renovation began, Anderson and Casas Lindas only had
agreed to donate some paint and one day of labor to make the
rundown building look a bit nicer.

Then they realized that the building needed its entry way more
thoroughly renovated. Then, they found more work that needed to be
done and appliances that need to be upgraded.

"It was tremendously larger than we originally planned,"
Anderson says. "We just kept on going."

More than a week and a half later, when the project was
complete, Casas Lindas had donated multiple days of free labor, as
well as a handful of nights and weekends. Anderson also had
convinced other area businesses to donate materials, appliances,
and paint.

"I just badgered them until they gave in," she says, "I'm pretty
good at that."

Once an ugly, shabby back building used mainly for storage, the
center is now the centerpiece of SAAVI's comprehensive day-based
training program.

In the publicly funded program, SAAVI helps the visually
impaired gain the skills they will need to get a job or read
Braille. The new renovated areas, however, are used mostly to teach
the students how go about their every day home lives.

For example, the stove in the center's kitchen has raised dots
stuck to all of its knobs. The students are taught how to use those
dots to turn the stove off and on without putting themselves in
danger of being burned. The center has similar raise dots on the
washer, dryer, iron and microwave.

When the students go home, they are given their own stickers and
helped to put them on their appliances.

Banta says the building's renovation to seem like a working
apartment has made the training more effective.

"It's important that now we have these, we don't have to say,
'pretend this is an iron,'" she says. "Now we can say even when
teaching how to make a bed, 'here's a pillow and here's a
pillowcase."